why do so many people seem to have a hierarchy allergy round these Western leftist parts
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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Because they're so used to hierarchy based on oppression, pedigree and greed rather than contextual hierarchy based on actual merit and expertise.
I'd rather take orders about plumbing from a plumber rather than orders from a guy who bought a plumbing company but never did plumbing in his life.
We are all very used to the latter. We have people making public health policy who believe in homeopathy. We have car building companies run by guys who have never built a car. We have guys in control of armies who don't know the literal definition of genocide. People in charge of companies that make food that have never had to take a single class on human nutrition.
Of course people are going to be allergic to hierarchy when we're so used to the people in control being unfit for their role.
Hierarchy is a lot different when instead of a single dude being in power because he's a rich asshole, it's instead deferring to someone who has more expertise in the task at hand. Hierarchy doesn't have to be rigid either. The guy who you're deferring to about plumbing might suddenly have to defer to your experience in electrical work.
True, contextual hierarchy that is based around what needs to be done and who is trained to perform the task and can adapt based on what kind of skills are required isn't bad.
Like, I'm going to let a surgeon be the boss of me when it comes to surgery.
I think the 'self enforcement' approach to covid is a good example of why sometimes you do actually need to give authority to save lives. The important part is getting right who you give authority to. Right now we give it to the least qualified and most bloodthirsty people.
I would personally frame this as the important issue being the mechanism by which authority is given and can be revoked, because if such a mechanism is democratic (and extended to production) then suddenly it's much less of a problem than in our undemocratic society where politicians answer only to donors and donors answer only to capital.
Absolutely. Temporary, task based authority that only extends to your skill set and can be easily revoked if you're caught being a corrupt little power piggy.
Recently experienced this myself. Management wants us to stop splitting orders to ship things from multiple warehouses because it is more expensive to ship. Sure I get that shipping $125 of product from the east coast to Montana might cost us, but shipping $500 of product from California to Michigan is still profit.
Not to mention that this change is also causing some people to just cancel their entire order.
Management is making decisions based on metrics that ignore the customer and I guarantee are going to really hurt overall profit margins long term.
The problem is the people making these decisions got their jobs because they're good at knowing people and shooting shit over golf, not because they actually know anything about what is good for the job.
During a sales meeting last week they had us watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CbZJL5sez0
"Emotionally manipulate your customers to get them to buy shit they don't need or might not be able to sell without thinking about it"
Guy looks like Jeff Bezos
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Another factor is simply sticking around long enough until they have the seniority to be promoted. The motivated people look elsewhere; the mediocre people settle for what they've got and slowly advance inside companies.
It's a mechanism of the Peter Principle.
Good Post.